7 months ago

7 months ago

7 months ago

Rush the Court will be covering the NCAA Tournament from start to finish over the next three weeks.

Mick Cronin’s Team Was Very Impressive Tonight (USA Today Images)

Key Takeaways.

Cincinnati is More Offensive Than You Think. Forgiving the pun here, but if you haven’t watched much of Cincinnati this season you likely don’t realize that the Bearcats — known under Mick Cronin for its generally offensive offense — broke 80 points in 15 games this season. That’s not to say that anyone will mistake his team for UCLA or North Carolina on the offensive end of the floor, but it is to say that the painful droughts that often ended up beating the Bearcats have become more sporadic this year. In tonight’s first half against Kansas State, Cincinnati delivered a 65 percent shooting clinic that effectively put offensively-challenged Wildcats in a bind — how to make up an 11-point deficit without the pace or ability to make sustained runs? The Bearcats did their typical defensive work too — especially in several key moments of the second half — but beware the team that thinks the likes of Troy Caupain (23 points) and Gary Clark (15 points) aren’t legitimate scorers.

And Yet, the Defense. Cincinnati isn’t like Press Virginia in that it doesn’t turn you over to fuel blistering 12-0 runs that run teams out of the building. Rather, the Bearcats’ style is more like death by a slow, excruciating boil. Kansas State experienced this firsthand in the middle of tonight’s second half when, after cutting the lead to eight points with around 12 minutes remaining, the Bearcats made stops on the subsequent five possessions (including a couple blocks on what appeared like easy conversions) over three minutes to push the lead back out to 14 points. And while that may not sound like an insurmountable margin with nine minutes remaining, you could feel the air being sucked out of the sails on the Kansas State sideline. The Wildcats never got the lead under double figures again.

Kansas State Showed Out Well. Many of the things that Kansas State does well, Cincinnati simply does better. But to make the NCAA Tournament field as the last at-large team in and win a First Four game over a trendy team like Wake Forest showed that the Wildcats, led by senior Wesley Iwundu but primarily run by underclassmen, will be back. Bruce Weber seems in perma-hot seat status, but you’d have to think that he did enough this season to keep his job for at least one more year.

Star of the Game. Troy Caupain, Cincinnati. The Bearcats’ senior guard put together a stellar First Round game tonight, scoring 23 points on 7-of-10 shooting, grabbing seven boards and adding a couple of dimes. When he is cooking, Cincinnati is tough to beat because the defensive effort will always be there to support it.

The top of the Big 12 is off to a hot start this season with Kansas, Baylor, and West Virginia all ranked among the top 12 of the AP poll and the current KenPom ratings. These three teams have a combined 34-2 record that includes wins over Duke, Virginia, Louisville and Xavier. The class of the league appears as strong as ever, but if the Big 12 has notions on putting seven teams back into the NCAA Tournament for the third consecutive year, trouble arises further down the standings. With a mix uninspiring victories and troubling losses, the middle of the pack is full of teams that will need to earn their chops in conference play to sufficiently impress the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee. Texas and Oklahoma appear in trouble, so let’s focus on the five teams with the best resumes to date.

Iowa State Hasn’t Shined as Much as Hoped This Season (USA Today Images)

Iowa State. The Cyclones entered the season with high expectations given that head coach Steve Prohm returned four key contributors. To date the Cyclones have yet to really impress or disappoint. Iowa State’s three losses have all been understandable — dropping games to Gonzaga, Cincinnati and rival Iowa — but the rest of the schedule has consisted of mostly cupcakes save for a nice win over Miami (FL). The key for the Cyclones in Big 12 play will be their performance on the road. Hilton Magic should result in a minimum of six or seven home wins, but that means Iowa State will need to win three or four road games to feel confident about an NCAA Tournament berth. With no sign of a true bottom-feeder in the conference this year, that will be much easier said than done.

TCU. Despite sporting an 11-1 record, Jamie Dixon’s Horned Frogs have yet to create any real buzz in part because TCU’s best wins came in an odd scheduling quirk, beating Washington in back-to-back contests. Aside from those two victories, their next best win came against Illinois State — not exactly something to write to the Selection Committee about. Whereas Iowa State is more concerned with taking care of business and keeping the status quo, TCU needs a big win or two in conference play as well as a plus-.500 Big 12 record. Going 9-9 with six losses to Kansas, Baylor and West Virginia isn’t likely to be enough.

It seems rare when a team that comes back to force overtime in the manner that Kansas did ends up losing the game, but that’s exactly what happened in Manhattan against Kansas State last night. The Wildcats held a nine-point lead with under two minutes remaining (sound familiar, Kansas fans?) but some Jayhawks’ layups, putbacks, and a pair of costly Kansas State turnovers sent the game to overtime. No matter. The Wildcats continued to dominate the paint and won for only the fourth time in the series’ last 52 games, 85-82. Here are four takeaways from last night’s action in Bramlage Coliseum.

Marcus Foster has been a big reason for Kansas State’s improved play as of late.

Kansas State is putting together a solid NCAA Tournament resume. After losing three out of five in the middle of January, the Wildcats now have back-to-back wins over top 15 teams. Their resume includes impressive victories over Gonzaga, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas. Last night’s win puts them at 17-7 and just two games back of Kansas in the Big 12 standings.

Marcus Foster is legit. The Wildcat freshman guard had 20 points on 5-of-10 shooting and added a pair of late free throws in overtime to ice the game with 22 seconds left. He came into the game averaging 14.7 PPG but has been especially hot lately, scoring over 20 points in four of his last five games. He’s averaged 27 PPG over the last two games in wins over #7 Kansas and #15 Texas. Read the rest of this entry »

This Weekend’s Lede. It started somewhat unceremoniously with a nondescript game between Air Force and Army in something called the All-Military Classic in Lexington, Virginia. But after seven long months of quiet, the early afternoon tip between two of the military academies in a tiny gym on the campus of VMI represented the reappearance of the sport we call college basketball. For years we’ve clamored for an Opening Night with the appropriate pomp and fanfare that the game deserves upon its November arrival, and with the excitement around social media and the number of good games available on the various networks, we’re getting there. Some 225 other games involving D-I teams came throughout the weekend, and even though there were no aircraft carrier games scattered about the land, there was still plenty to get juiced about.

Your Watercooler Moment. The Triumphant Return of Joshua Smith.

Joshua Smith Showed Off His Dominant Post Game in the Armed Forces Classic

Approximately one year ago, the last time any of us saw Joshua Smith, we were subjected to this embarrassing crime against basketball. After a transfer year when he traveled cross-country to Georgetown and received a waiver from the NCAA to play immediately, it was hard to say what to expect this time around. We’ve always known that the 6’10”, 300+ pound center has soft hands, quick feet that belie his size and great touch around the basket, but his weight, and correspondingly, his stamina, have remained problematic. He simply couldn’t stay on the floor at UCLA, averaging only 19.3 minutes per game in a little over two seasons. But on Friday, for at least one night, Smith appeared to be a different player. Although Georgetown lost the Armed Forces Classic game to Oregon, the burly center logged 27 fruitful minutes, shot 10-of-13 from the field, and looked downright unstoppable inside on his way to 25 points. The Hoyas wouldn’t have been within 15 points of the Ducks were it not for Smith’s production, and it begs the question: Has the change of scenery allowed Smith to turn the corner in his development? If so, and what we saw this weekend is any indication, Georgetown has found itself with one of the most talented big men in the nation.

Sights & Sounds. Plenty of great stuff from Friday night, so check out the separate post we put together on Saturday to store it all. The top dunks, buzzer-beaters and some other notable videos and images are all over there, but we saved the best buzzer-beater of the weekend for here. Dayton was down two points as IPFW looked to inbound the ball to ice the big road upset. Then, this happened…

Brutal. And in case you’re too lazy to click through, here’s the best dunk of the weekend for good measure. Michael Qualls!

Top Storyline. Four Freshman Phenoms. We’ve been talking about them all offseason, and the debuts of some of the nation’s top rookies was everything we had hoped it would be. On Friday night, Kentucky’s Julius Randle, Duke’s Jabari Parker and Kansas’ Andrew Wiggins were all playing at the same time, and none disappointed. In a dominant win over Davidson, Parker went for 22/6 on 8-of-10 shooting from the floor that included a silky-smooth 3-of-3 from deep. Randle did Parker one better with a 23/15 performance against UNC-Asheville that included an impressive 11-of-13 from the foul line. He followed that up with another 22/14/3 assts against Northern Kentucky on Sunday, becoming the first freshman to go for consecutive double-doubles in his first two collegiate games since Michael Beasley pulled the trick six years ago. Wiggins didn’t have a dominant performance in Kansas’ win over Louisiana-Monroe, tallying 16/3/3 stls in 34 minutes of action. The trio will all be on display tomorrow night at the Champions Classic, and so far, so good. We also shouldn’t forget Arizona’s star freshman, Aaron Gordon, who put up a 13/10/4 blks double-double himself in the Wildcats’ win over Cal Poly.

Four More Weekend Storylines.

These Games Are Foul. Well, some of them are, at least. There was an awful lot of preseason discussion given to the new hand-checking rules and how coaches, players and officials would have to adjust on the fly. Results have been mixed. One team that many pundits thought would be most impacted, Louisville, only had 14 total fouls in a 62-possession game against Charleston. On the other hand, a Seton Hall-Niagara game on Saturday resulted in a dreadful 73 fouls in an 81-possession game. In fact, there were more free throw attempts (102) than field goal attempts (101) in that game, which two hours and 28 minutes to complete. A total of 24 teams were called for 30 or more fouls over the weekend, while 18 were called for fewer than 15. The national average last season was 17.7 fouls per team per game (or 35.4 fouls per game), so this is definitely a trend worth watching.

ACC Darling Boston College Struggling. BC was a chic pick to make some noise in the ACC this season, and certainly there’s a lot of time left for the Eagles to get things going. But two losses over the weekend revealed that the same issues that Steve Donahue’s team had last season haven’t been solved. They still can’t guard anybody. In losses against Providence and Massachusetts, Boston College gave up 1.04 and 1.20 points per possession, respectively, and an average of 84 points per game. Furthermore, Bryce Cotton (28 points) and Cady Lalanne (27 points) lit their defense up, getting the shots they wanted whenever they wanted. Last season the Eagles finished 192nd in the country in adjusted defensive efficiency; if they don’t figure out a way to limit easy looks from the opposition, they’ll be staring another .500 season in the face not matter how good their offense becomes.

Mr. Robinson May Need a New Neighborhood. It was no secret that Oregon State head coach Craig Robinson came into this season on the hot seat. After yet another embarrassing home loss to a low-major team Sunday night, he may want to go ahead and start picking out his moving company. MEAC teams were 1-89 in the last two seasons against power conference schools (the one victory was Norfolk State over Missouri in the 2012 NCAA Tournament), and they were 0-5 so far this season. That is, until Coppin State went into Oregon State’s Gill Coliseum and used its athleticism and timely three-point shooting to lead for much of the game before walking out with a Pac-12 scalp. Robinson has had a history of these types of awful home losses, and adding another one to his resume surely doesn’t help things for him in Corvallis.

Other Weekend Upsets. Virginia Tech and Miami (FL) suffered tough home losses over the weekend (to USC Upstate and St. Francis (NY), respectively), but both of those programs were expected to be rebuilding this season. The biggest upset of the weekend instead had to have been Kansas State’s shocking home loss to Northern Colorado on Friday night. The jokes about Bruce Weber losing with some of his own players started in earnest immediately after the game, but it was two holdovers from last season’s Big 12 co-champions in Shane Southwell and Will Spradling who were largely responsible for this one. The duo combined to shoot a miserable 4-of-22 from the field and 2-of-12 from behind the arc.

Your Weekend All-Americans.

First Team

Julius Randle, Kentucky (NPOY). Consecutive double-doubles to start a collegiate career for the first time since Michael Beasley did it in 2007-08 makes this an easy choice. Through three days of action, he’s the NPOY.

Jabari Parker, Duke. Parker didn’t board like Randle but he scored more efficiently, missing only two shots in his debut.

Joshua Smith, Georgetown. As mentioned above, Smith’s 25/4 on 10-of-13 shooting was his best game in nearly two years.

TJ Warren, NC State. Warren went off for 27/8/3 assts as the Wolfpack beat Appalachian State to start a season of very low expectations.

With just over a week remaining before bona fide games tip off, the NCAA is releasing decisions on player eligibility with gusto. Last week it was Georgetown receiving the good (and astonishing) news that former UCLA center Josh Smith would be eligible to play immediately; Oregon got similar news on Friday when the NCAA cleared Houston transfer Joseph Young to play immediately for Dana Altman as well. Young is an exceptional scoring guard who averaged 18.0 PPG last season and brings to Eugene the 26th-best offensive rating in college basketball (124.1 last season). In a now-loaded backcourt featuring Dominic Artis, Damyean Dotson and Young to go along with transfer Mike Moser in the frontcourt, the Ducks are suddenly looking like one of the top two or three teams in the Pac-12 again. Interestingly, transfers Young and Smith will face each other in their first game of the season between the Ducks and Hoyas in South Korea on November 8.

Just a few days after Tim Floyd revealed that Kentucky and UTEP were exploring a 2016 game to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their Brown vs. Board of Education national championship match-up, word came out that John Calipari’s program is seeking to spearhead another Champions Classic-style event involving the nation’s top basketball schools. According to ESPN.com‘s Andy Katz, Kentucky, UCLA, North Carolina and Ohio State are negotiating a three-year event that would mimic the Champions Classic with each team rotating through the others in alternate years. The unnamed event would begin in 2014-15 and would move between Brooklyn, Indianapolis and Las Vegas during the first three-year window. When the Champions Classic was first developed, we wondered if some of the other all-time great basketball schools such as UNC and UCLA would ever have a chance to participate; with this new event now in the pipeline, we’ll just about have it covered. Serious question, though — with a combined 24 national titles among this group, shouldn’t the new event supersede the other for rights to the name “Champions Classic?” And what happened to Indiana (five titles compared with Ohio State’s one)?

The Miami/Nevin Shapiro scandal has come and gone with Frank Haith getting off relatively easy (a five-game suspension) and the Hurricane basketball program moving forward in decent shape. But, as the Miami Herald reports, former assistant coach Jorge Fernandez’s professional life has been destroyed as a result of admitted violations relating to providing free airline tickets to players and later lying to the NCAA about it. The article correctly points out that it is often the low-level assistants in these scandals who suffer the brunt of the punishment, as Fernandez notes that a two-year ‘show cause’ penalty has shut him out of the coaching profession and caused the matter of providing basic needs for his family very difficult. Some coaches around the country have rallied around him throughout his ordeal, but many others have not, and it’s uncertain if or where he will be able to land after his penalty has ended. It’s another one of those stories that makes people shrug their shoulders at the stark inequities built into the NCAA’s byzantine system of enforcement and punishment.

It got lost in the late week news cycle, but some big news relating to the Ed O’Bannon case against the NCAA was released on Friday afternoon. Federal district judge Claudia Wilken denied the NCAA’s motion for dismissal, paving the way for O’Bannon and the other plantiffs to move forward and eventually receive a trial on the merits of the case. The primary issue here was the relevance of language in a 1984 case from former Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens that, while not part of the holding of that lawsuit, has been relied upon by the NCAA to retain its amateur model: “In order to preserve the character and quality of the [NCAA’s] ‘product,’ athletes must not be paid, must be required to attend class, and the like.” Wilken rejected the notion that Stevens’ language represented any particular binding precedent, and in so doing, has removed a major procedural barrier assuring that the plaintiffs will get their day in court. Wilken will next rule on class certification of the case, potentially allowing thousands more plaintiffs to sue the NCAA and correspondingly raising their potential liability well into the billions of dollars.

The NCAA Tournament Bracket is finally here, and it didn’t take long for someone to predict another early Kansas loss this year. Jeff Goodman at CBSSports.com previewed the South Regional here (in which the Jayhawks are the #1 seed) and has #8 seed North Carolina taking KU out in the Round of 64. And as C.J. Moore points out here, this upset pick might not be that crazy. Roy Williams changed his lineup last month against Duke, inserting P.J. Hairston into the starting lineup at the four spot. Since that game, the Tar Heels are 8-2. And it’s not like small lineups haven’t given the Jayhawks fits in the past. Think Purdue in last season’s Round of 32 or Iowa State this season.

It hasn’t gotten much publicity, but Oklahoma coach Lon Kruger is now the first coach to take five different schools to the NCAA Tournament after his Sooners earned a #10 seed in the South Region. Kansas State, Florida, Illinois, and UNLV were all NCAA Tournament teams at one time or another under Kruger, who signed on at Oklahoma before last season and steered the Sooners to a five-game (and counting) improvement in the win column this season. The Sooners face #7 seed San Diego State in the Round of 64.

For those of you lucky enough to skip work or school later this week, here’s a guide for your TV viewing pleasure, from Sports Illustrated‘s Richard Deitsch. For all the things the NCAA can screw up, the move with CBS and Turner Sports to broadcast more Tournament games across a number of networks (truTV, TBS, TNT, CBS) was one of the better decisions it has made in years, much better than the decision to expand the field to 68 teams (Did Middle Tennessee State really deserve an at-large bid?). The SI piece has all you need to know, including a list of broadcasting teams. My personal favorite: Verne Lundquist, Bill Raftery, and Rachel Nichols.

Forget bracket predictions, snubs, sleepers, and upsets for a minute. Eamonn Brennan ranked all 68 NCAA Tournament teams, but not by talent or resumes or title chances — instead, he gave us the most “watchable” teams of the Tournament. Not surprisingly, Iowa State came in at #11, higher than any other Big 12 school. The Cyclones aren’t a great team, but their complete lack of conscience from deep is fun to watch. Almost anywhere past the half-court line is fair game for their shooters. Not surprisingly, Kansas came in next at #21, followed by Oklahoma State (#22), Kansas State (#37) and Oklahoma at #43. Indiana topped the list.

Bruce Weber has had a great first season at Kansas State, sharing the regular season conference title with Kansas and making it to the conference tournament championship game over the weekend. Weber told Kellis Robinett of the Kansas City Star that he wanted to play in Kansas City and on Friday. It’s unclear if Weber knew that Kansas City was a Friday/Sunday site so one wish came with the other, but he received both desires nonetheless. But as Robinett points out, the Wildcats are also forced to scout two teams this week after getting paired with the winner of a play-in game Wednesday: La Salle or Boise State. Kansas State is likely to face #4 seed Wisconsin should the Wildcats win on Friday.

With Groundhog Day and, oh yeah, the Super Bowl now behind us, the next couple of months belong to college basketball. Our RTC Podcast host Shane Connolly (@sconnolly114) is back to lead us down a primrose path of hoops enlightenment, including a discussion of the two biggest games of last weekend, examine some of the teams among the best in the country we can’t quite get a good read on yet, and riff on underrated names that should be getting more publicity this season. All this and more (outlined below) in this week’s podcast.

Check back on Friday of this week for our shorter RTC Podblast, which will run down some of the action from this week and look ahead to the weekend’s biggest games. And don’t forget to add the RTC Podcast to your iTunes lineup so that you’ll automatically upload it on your listening device after each recording. Thanks!

0:00-8:32 – Oklahoma State vs. Kansas

8:32-20:21 – Indiana vs. Michigan

20:21-27:07 – Florida, Syracuse and Duke – just how good are they?

27:07-30:21 – When does bubble talk start to mean something?

30:21-35:09 – Underrated stars

35:09-37:54 – Where does Kansas State belong in the rankings?

37:54-41:47 – How far does Oregon drop after 2 bad losses?

41:47-47:51 – Mid-week previews & Wrap

We welcome any and all feedback on these podcasts including topics for future discussion or if you want to send us any questions for our “May Not Be From Actual Listeners” segment. Hit us up at rushthecourt@yahoo.com or @rushthecourt on Twitter.

As we’re now back on a regular schedule with The RTC Podcast, we hope that those of you listening out there will continue to give us feedback in terms of some of the things you like and don’t like about our weekly venture. And definitely please feel free to continue to hit us up with commentary via Twitter and/or email if you have a good idea of something you’d like for us to discuss or add to the podcasts or end-of-week podblasts.

This week, as always, we’re hosted by Shane Connolly (@sconnolly114), where we took a hearty look back at the Big East’s blunderful weekend, talked over the new transfer rules and their possible downstream ramifications, and discuss some of the most indispensable players in college basketball. We’ll be back Friday afternoon with the shorter RTC Podblast, per the usual schedule. Thanks!

We welcome any and all feedback on these podcasts including topics for future discussion or if you want to send us any questions for our “May Not Be From Actual Listeners” segment. Hit us up at rushthecourt@yahoo.com or @rushthecourt on Twitter.

Here’s hoping that everyone is enjoying a safe and memorable holiday season. Here at RTC we’ve fallen victim to some of the same time-sucking madness that envelops everyone at the end of the year, but we were able to get together Episode Seven of the RTC Podcast last night to publish today. As always, Shane Connolly (@sconnolly114) is our host and he leads us through the last couple week of action with a focus on the nation’s undefeated teams who have already suffered their first losses.

Next week we’ll do Episode Eight at the end of the week and then we’ll jump back into the normal schedule of Tuesday/Friday recordings. Feel free to jump around using the outline below. Also make sure to add the RTC Podcast to your iTunes lineup so that you’ll automatically upload it on your listening device after each recording. Thanks!

0:00-6:00 – Indiana Knocked From #1 – Meaningful?

6:00-7:02 – Butler is King of the Upset

7:02-8:23 – Jim Boeheim Wins #900 Then Loses

8:23-11:40 – Florida Goes 0-2 Against Wildcats

11:40-13:13 – Impressions of Arizona

13:13-14:43 – Kansas State Enjoying Life with Bruce Weber

14:43-19:10 – Bragging Rights Reactions

19:10-20:54 – Thoughts Heading into New Mexico-Cincinnati

20:54-27:48 – Kansas Wins at Ohio State

27:48-30:44 – Bluegrass Battle Preview

30:44-35:25 – Can UNC Avenge Last Year’s Loss vs UNLV?

35:25-37:10 – Gonzaga’s Big 12 Holiday Weekend

37:10-38:09 – Quick Picks and Wrapup

We welcome any and all feedback on these podcasts including topics for future discussion or if you want to send us any questions for our “May Not Be From Actual Listeners” segment. Hit us up at rushthecourt@yahoo.com or @rushthecourt on Twitter.

Week one is in the books. There is already a fair amount of movement within the rankings, as well as a few teams making appearances in the Top 25 after not being on the radar in the preseason. The big story is, of course, Shabazz Muhammad is eligible to play for UCLA. As such, the Bruins rose in the rankings despite a near-miss performance against UC Irvine. Meanwhile, NC State took a significant hit after a blowout loss to Marcus Smart and Oklahoma State. The Cowboys make an appearance in the Top 25 after not even receiving votes in the preseason poll.